Survey looks for ways to make Wisconsin healthier

Public health researchers will visit rural Weston soon to gather information about residents' health and the community.

The Survey of the Health of Wisconsin, SHOW, has been gathering health information since 2008. It is building a database of information for researchers and community planners to use when looking for ways to combat the health problems that Wisconsin battles every day.

Dr. F. Javier Nieto, director of SHOW, envisions "? the information SHOW collects through the years will play an important role in monitoring the health of Wisconsin people, and in guiding community and statewide health services."

To achieve that vision, in 2013 SHOW researchers will visit 36 neighborhoods around the state collecting information from rural, suburban as well as urban areas; north as well as south and the cities along with the towns. Information also is collected to represent each area of Wisconsin across the seasons so that the survey looks at the ways weather and temperature affect our diet and our activity levels. SHOW plans to be in Marathon County the weeks of Feb. 18, March 4 and March 18.

The result is a database that describes Wisconsin residents as they are today; and gives residents a way to watch as we change in the future. SHOW provides tools needed to measure efforts to make Wisconsin healthier in the future. Some of the changes residents make will begin because of information learned in the SHOW survey. Some existing programs will be improved because of information found in the surveys.

Dr. Henry Anderson of the Division of Public Health said "this survey will make us better equipped to ? make Wisconsin healthier than ever."

SHOW is funded by the National Institutes of Health's Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and by the Partnership for a Healthy Future. SHOW is a research project from the UW School of Medicine and Public Health expanding the boundaries of health science through research.